GOOD or BAD: Special Torchwood Edition

[coalescent]

You may notice a small change to the poll format this time. I know it goes against the spirit of GOOD or BAD, but I think that Torchwood deserves it.

[Poll #899571]

If you can't remember what some of the episodes were about, I'm certainly not going to be so cruel as to remind you. Except for this.

EDIT: THE LIST OF SHAME
fba thinks "Everything Changes", "Ghost Machine", "Small Worlds", "Countrycide", "Greeks Bearing Gifts", "Out of Time" and "Captain Jack Harkness" are GOOD.
pikelet thinks "Cyberwoman" is GOOD (although I'm almost certain he's being ironic, the scamp)
veggiesu thinks "Random Shoes" and "Captain Jack Harkness" are GOOD, even though she hasn't seen them.
I think "Out of Time" is GOOD
swisstone thinks "Small Worlds", "Out of Time" and "Captain Jack Harkness" are GOOD.
ajr thinks "Out of Time" is GOOD. He also does not think that "End of Days" is DREADFUL. However, blackbeltbarbie thinks "End of Days" is GOOD.

Comments

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I should point out that I've only seen the first two episodes; however, in the spirit of LJ polls and GOOD or BAD, I haven't let that stop me voting :-)

[fba.livejournal.com]

You probably would think that 'Captain Jack Harkness' because it involves two pretty men in uniforms snogging...

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Snap!

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

That is a truly beautiful format.
May I vote for eps I've only partially seen?
...of course I can. *laughs evilly*

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

'Good' compared to the rest of Torchwood, of course. By most standards they are no more than so-so. And 'Captain Jack Harkness' makes it only by dint of ignoring the big sloppy gay kiss in front of everyone.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that Original Flavour Harkness was shot down by his own men the next day. Meaning Jack caused it all in the first place in classic time-traveller style.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming the episodes I didn't see were at least as dreadful as those I did see.

Let's be frank: Torchwood does SF more damage than My Science Fiction Life did.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

He is also the only person who does not think that "End of Days" is DREADFUL.

I haven't watched it (or "Captain Jack Harkness") yet, but I figured it would be at least a bad, so picked that. I reserve the right to change my vote after watching it. :)

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Having watched both episodes, I've now upgraded "Captain Jack Harkness" to Good (but far from great), and I've left "End of Days" as bad. For me, it stays enough on the side of plain badness to not veer into unmitigatedly dreadful territory. And, if nothing else, it's a magnitude better than "Parting of Ways" as finales go.

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

I quite liked 'Cyberwoman', for the following three reasons:

(i) The partial Cyber-conversion was suitably gory and pushed my fanboy buttons. I feel no shame whatsoever at this;

(ii) CYBERWOMAN ATE MY BRAIN is possibly the best thing to come from the Torchwood writers' crack pipe; it's utterly ridiculous - and yet because of how ridiculous it is, I ended up going 'Oh, okay, then - random instant brain surgery. Of course';

(iii) I'm judging it by the standards of the other episodes I've seen, purely to annoy you by turning GOOD/BAD into a relativistic exercise.

I'm not hating it for the pterodactyl/Cyberwoman scene because, when watched on the train on an iPod, it actually looks reasonably decent. Miles better than the ridiculous changes in scale of the demon thing I've seen at the end of the finale, anyway. 'Look! He's about ten miles high! No, wait, his hand's only just bigger than Jack. And now he's utterly disappeared without a trace', etc.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I'm not hating it for the pterodactyl/Cyberwoman scene

Why don't you hate it for terrible pacing, stupid costume design and it's commitment to "Tell, don't show" characterisation instead, you contrary git?

[ajp.livejournal.com]

Unlike some people, I am going to remind you of the episodes – because I certainly couldn't remember their titles... So episode recaps can be found here http://www.epguides.com/Torchwood/; if you need them...

[cellardoor28.livejournal.com]

I decided last night that the demon at the end looked like the ultimate evil dude in Krull. Except with worse effects.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I saw somewhere that he is some known Doctor Who creature and that therefore the Doctor clearly planned everything and resurrected Jack because he knew this moment would come to pass. Or something. Which just makes everything so much worse.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

I am officially boycotting this poll because it does conform to GOOD or BAD standards. More than two choices? Shame on you sir!

[ex-susumu64.livejournal.com]

When to be fair it only needed the one choice.

[blackbeltbarbie.livejournal.com]

The ones I didn't vote on are ones I didn't see.

I realise I didn't really like a majority of the season, and yet kept watching.

Some of them where ok up to a point and then where bad, like End of Days was good until you saw the monster and realised they spread the budget too thin with three shows.

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

You missed an extra option, "absolute unmitigated shit". I'd've cheerfully given it to a few very special episodes.

[elfgirl.livejournal.com]

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have voted good for "Captain Jack Harkness" and "End of Days" simply because of the gratuitous boy snogging. I have not actually seen EoD, however, and reserve the right to change my vote if the monster is as horrible as I think it might be (in which case, no amount of boy snogging could redeem it).

Also, I have voted dreadful for Cyberwoman, just because.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched it for a couple of weeks (going to watch the double bill tonight on BBC2) which may justify my overleniency. Feel free to bump up the figures for His vote, which is Dreadful throughout except for Small Worlds which is just Bad.

[yalovetz]

I have not seen any of Torchwood, but voted anyway. I'm pretty sure I would have thought it was all dreadful anyway, I just have no intention of confirming that suspicion.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I voted straight-ticket DREADFUL. Seemed the safest thing to do.

[dev-iant.livejournal.com]

I still think that Torchwood is infinitely preferable to the "new" Dr Who. I'd have actually voted "indifferent" to most of the episodes given a choice. All of them have their weak spots, but most have redeeming features and one or two are really quite good. although you do have to ignore the blatant errors/discrepancies etc :)

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

There's no easy way to break this to you: you are entirely wrongheaded.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Where is the BOBBINS! option?

(I rate Cyberwoman as merely BAD, because it gave the world CYBERWOMAN VS PTERODACTYL without me having to watch it.)

[kelyantar.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about this show. Am I missing anything?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Not unless you have a particular desire to watch a cyborg woman fight a pterodactyl.

[twic.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Have not voted, since i haven't seen enough episodes, but based on what i have seen, you may, if you wish, infer a kind of moral 'DREADFUL!' to the series as a whole.

Which i'm actually quite sad about. So much money, screen time, momentum and viewer goodwill wasted. I hope people hang for this.

-- tom

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I hope people hang for this.

If by "hang" you mean "get lauded with compliments by the BBC and handed a second series" then yes, all your hopes shall reach fulfilment.

If on the other hand...

[matgb]

I voted for the first 5 episodes only, as I only have the DVDs and haven't watched it broadcast.

I actually quite like the show, in a mindless entertainment with daft bits way. And it's still better than most of the rest of the dross out there, it's just not as good as it could be.

[wychwood]

I would have said that "Everything Changes" was GOOD because it was moderately enjoyable, and not bad as an opener. But then it had Owen's attempted rape, which downgrades the episode to BAD.

Also, I stopped watching after "Small Worlds", so have no idea what the later episodes were like :)

*is sad over lack of anticipated awesomeness in Torchwood*

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Interesting thing: Out of Time and Captain Jack Harkness have done best in the poll. Both by the same writer, Cath Treganna.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I hadn't realised it was the same person until Iain pointed it out in his review.

I am very impressed by the tags on this post.

Random Shoes

[pmcmurray.livejournal.com]

I kept watching hoping it would get better, and was about to give up entirely when I saw this episode. It was weak, but it had some flashes, something going for it, and it didn't have the eternal whinging / wrangling that every other episode seemed to have.

It led me to the thought that it's not the ideas, the implementation, the SFX, the plots, that are weak, and even most of the characters are OK when they're on their own. I think the big weakness in this programme is the unconvincing team interactions, which are probably because they've got the wrong type of personalities in each role...

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Having now seen the final 2 episodes, I see why you had to add the extra option!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd decided to add that much earlier in the season ... :)